


A Dog with a Wishbone

by shirogiku



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Anne Takes No Shit From Anybody, Eleanor's Employee Poaching Moves, F/F, F/M, Fighting, Gen, Girls Kissing, Knives, Max Has The Best Worst Ideas, Pre-Season/Series 01, Pre-Series, Sparring, Swearing, sand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 18:54:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6622342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirogiku/pseuds/shirogiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Eleanor has Big Plans for Anne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dog with a Wishbone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pahfoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pahfoo/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [pahfoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pahfoo/pseuds/pahfoo) in the [pirate_prompts_2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/pirate_prompts_2016) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> This is a pretty vague request I'm sorry, but I really want to see Anne Bonny interacting with another woman, or women, can be anyone and can fluffy or smutty or anything else. 
> 
> Could be Max and Anne, but I'd also really love to see Anne and Eleanor interacting some more, or Anne and Madi or even Anne and Mary Read, if you feel like it, cause it doesn't seem like the show is going to give me that. 
> 
> Basically Anne + ladies.

Sand is the next best fucking thing in a fight after the actual pistols and blades. Jack would say, no, it’s your feet - but he doesn’t use them for kicking. Nassau is so full of it, always holding it in its fists.

With a snarl, Anne flings it in her opponent’s face, before pressing her advantage and stepping on his cutlass. Hers is lying on the ground a few paces away, but that’s alright - her knife is already at his throat.

Long hair can become a problem when it unbraids itself. It can be distracting at first, but then it forms a kind of battle visor - a bit like fighting with a knight's helmet on. Strangely motivating, that, and it’s not like you can’t see them coming.

“Touch my hair and die,” she warns through gritted teeth. “I _mean_ it.”

Charles cusses, but not at her, glancing past her with red, sore eyes.

She just keeps watching his knife, not budging an inch. “Tryin’ to get one over me, are you?”

“Miss Guthrie!” Jack exclaims behind her. “What an _absolute_ delight it is to see you on this fine day! What can we do you for?”

Anne isn’t stupid - she knows when to disengage. She and Charles circle each other, slowly lowering their weapons and pulling apart. Jack comes up to her as if for a kiss, but ends up clapping her on the back, swallowing his smug congratulations.

The Guthrie woman is standing by the Captain’s tent like she bloody owns it, completely ruining the mood.

“Guess you should’ve gone easier on him,” Jack mouths into her ear, hugging her hat to his chest. “In front of the lady.” She snatches the hat before he can hug it out of shape.

Charles seems to overhear him anyway: “Fuck you, Jack.” To her, not a word, but there is no need.

She puts the hat back on and finds her cutlass, saluting at Guthrie with it, to show the woman that she ain’t afraid of nobody on this island.

Except the Captain… and herself.

* * *

It is a busy night at the tavern, but then again, when isn’t it? Jack’s head is full of schemes, and Anne’s belly isn’t even nearly full enough of rum. Guthrie is at the bar counter, surveying her domain with a heavy look while Max, the whore, whispers into her ear. If they aren’t careful, the candles will stink up their clothes and hair. Those two have been getting disgusting cozy, and that can’t end well - not that it’s any of Anne’s business. Really, it ain’t.

The whore catches her at it, at minding her own business, and a chill starts up her gut - like _she_ is the one with too many dirty secrets. She glares back defiantly. Smiling that catty smile of hers, Max leans into the lady and puts on a show in front of everybody.

Guess she isn’t afraid of that many people now either.

* * *

When Max rushes into Anne and Jack’s nook at the brothel, Anne is prepared both for a fight and a fire. Instead, the whore tosses something with a metallic glint and clang at her.

“Hide these!”

Anne stares at her and then down at her hands. Guthrie’s key ring, and wouldn’t Jack _kill_ to have an hour with it? But instead of doing the smart thing, she blurts out:

“Where?”

“Under your hat, where else!”

“How ‘bout I hide my knifes up your-”

Guthrie storms in just as Anne is pulling the brim lower over her face. Max is lounging in Jack’s usual place with the look of a cat that has never seen a canary in its life and has no idea what it is. As the steely glare of accusation sweeps over them, Anne gets the sudden urge to wet her throat. Which he does, without moving her head an inch.

“Where _is_ it?” Guthrie demands.

Max bats her eyelashes at her. “What are you looking for, _mon coeur_? Maybe Max can help you find it...”  

“Have you lost your fucking mind?”

Anne almost admires the whore’s nerve, but that one moment of distraction is enough for Guthrie to snatch the bottle right out of her grip.

“The fuck you think you’re doing?” She jerks forward after it, and that is really not the smartest move that she could have made.

Max giggles like a young girl and runs off before either of them can stop her, so that leaves it Anne and the Guthrie woman on the verge of bloody murder. Somehow, Guthrie loses the staring contest but not the keys.

“Fucking Max,” she mutters on her way out, careful not to turn her back on Anne.

The pair of them deserves each other. “Keep the bottle.” Guthrie would carry it off anyway, but saying it turns a theft into getting rid of the leftovers.

Guthrie swings back to face her. “ _You_ don’t tell me what I get to keep.”

“You’ve got that right.” Anne adjusts her hat and leans back in her chair, balancing a knife between her fingers silently.

* * *

She has never been invited to a Governor’s or some other lawmaker’s office, so Guthrie’s reminds her of an unholy cross between a captain’s cabin and one of the bigger rooms at the brothel.

“Sit,” Guthrie tells her by way of greeting. The woman’s shadow, Mr. Scott, is not with them, Anne notes.

Instead of doing as told, she strides over to the window. The strategic view seems like the only sensible thing about the place.

The silence was tense when she entered. Now it is crackling with the stuff.

“You must be wondering what you are here for. Besides looking out of my window.”

It could be about the keys. Or it could be about the latest mess that the Rangers have made. Or maybe Guthrie was just that bored.

The woman offers Anne a drink, which she ignores.

“I remember the first time I saw you,” Guthrie continues. “I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

Anne snorts. It’s mutual, actually, but she sees no need to voice that. Then her mood darkens:

“So that’s what this is, then? You suddenly want to trade notes?”  

Eleanor’s smile is faint, and it does not reach anywhere else. “You should have let me finish. Do  you know what it was that I saw on that day?”

 _I believe that was a rhetorical question, darling_. She keeps quiet.

“A woman armed to the teeth who can walk among them, do the things they do. I won’t deny it, I was excited. _Inspired_ , even. I dared hoped that you would not be the only one, and yet, time goes by, and it’s still just the two of us.”

Anne looks at her then. As if Guthrie would tolerate any real competition. “I ain’t doing jobs for nobody not from the crew, so save it.”

Guthrie quirks her eyebrows at her. “You keep jumping to conclusions. What I have in mind is rather more permanent. I have an opening for a bodyguard-”

It makes Anne a little sick in the stomach. It’s Jack’s business, talking to annoying people like that. _She_ is for when all the talk is through.

“You have a mind of your own, no?”

Carefully, she grabs the sick feeling and begins to twist it around her hand until she can fight with it. “You ain’t pulling me into your shit with the Cap’n.”

Guthrie’s calm is chipping fast. “We are _not_ talking about your Captain or your current... employer. We are talking about you, who are a woman of unique talents-”

“-and who works for the man the almighty Eleanor Guthrie has got a bone to pick with,” she finishes.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Have you no ambition?”

The whole pitch has gone wrong, Anne can see that. She turns her attention to a wooden church model taking up a whole corner of the room, all pointy spires that can probably be used for torture - or just to throw visitors at after they have earned the lady’s displeasure.

“The fuck is that?” she asks.

“A _present_ ,” Guthrie replies. “Are you familiar with the concept at all?”

Bribes is how you buy people. Presents is how you make friends. Easy. “Who from? Cap’n Flint?”

Guthrie’s stare goes to ice as she returns to her chair. “I have many allies, and yet more enemies, which brings us back to the offer on the table. And save us both the embarrassment of claiming that you have never thought of striking out on your own and leaving those animals behind.”

Which part of doing the bidding of a tyrant in a skirt was ‘her own’? “What ‘bout Jack?”

Guthrie glanced heavenwards. “How long have you been sailing with him, I wonder?”

“Long enough to learn to kill,” she intones.

“And the two of you with Vane?”

Wouldn’t Guthrie like to know?

Eleanor puts her smile back on. “Well, there you have it - shouldn’t your… ah, partner be thinking of getting a ship of his own? More suited to his range of talents? What _is_ the point of having keeping him around if he is never allowed to solve problems his way?”

In a flash, Anne is at Guthrie’s desk, shoving a dish aside to slam down her fists. Eleanor does not flinch, not a muscle on her face moving. Say what they will about her, but she does have balls. As many as she can grab and cut off, but well. To each their own souvenirs.

“I ain’t stupid,” Anne says, looking her dead in the eye. “I know ‘bout the kind of games you play, and I don’t _need_ people telling me what to do and how to do it. So shove your oh so generous offer up your arse.” She pulls away, making for the exit.

“Oh, _please_ , every dog needs a strong master.” Anne grinds to a halt. “And no crew can subsist on pure violence forever.”

Anne glances at the woman over her shoulder, almost serene. “Crowning kings, deposing ‘em whenever you like… it can’t end well. You’ve just said it yourself,” the fuck is she doing a speech, “you press them too hard one day, and you’re done for.”

Eleanor’s cocky, unconcerned smile oddly reminds her of the whore. “Remember, I have approached you first. When _you_ come to me, the terms shall be different for both you and your plus one.”

* * *

Anne is on her second bottle, ignoring the noise of the brothel all around her. It will not be her last tonight by far. She wishes Jack were here so that she could fuck him. It would be a lie to say that the idea of a new ship for him holds no appeal, but the thing is, some devils, whether you know them or not, still ask for more than you could have ever expected.

“How did your conversation go?”

She nearly chokes on her drink. Of-fucking-course! _Max_ has put the Guthrie woman to it! “You meddling little-”

Max puts a fresh bottle on the table, pressing her finger to Anne’s lips. “ _Must_ we do everything the hard way, _ma belle_? Can’t we skip to the part where you listen to good advice offered to you?”

Anne bares her teeth and tells Max exactly what she can do with that advice, and so graphically that even a whore would learn a thing or two from it. Looking back later, she would regret some things, but never that one.


End file.
